You’ve no doubt heard about Bitcoin’s meteoric rise above $34,000 for what amounts to an invisible collection of bits of data. People see the value in crypto because it is immutable, trustless, and easily transferred from one party to another. But what about silver? Precious metals and crypto are good hedges against inflation, but which is better?
Silver Comes in Many Forms
If you’re new to silver investing, then you might imagine that people are buying up silver jewelry or chunks of metal. But silver comes in many forms:
- Silver coins
- Silver bars
- Silver futures
- Silver ETFs
In each of its forms, silver has different sets of attributes. If you want cold, hard metal in your hands, then silver coins and bars are the way to go. You can buy silver online as one troy ounce coins, rounds or bars and store it in your safe or at a remote location. But when you do it this way, you’re generally stuck with the metal. It’s not very liquid in this form and you’ll have to find a private buyer should you decide to part with your metal. But, it’s in your hands for a SHTF situation where the dollar collapses and Mad Max is about to battle you in the Thunderdome.
Prior to 2020, people would say that you’d have to be a crazy, tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist to imagine such a scenario. Yet here we are, with the entire population under house arrest and fighting over toilet paper rations.
If you’re not too concerned with losing your wealth in an apocalyptic dismantling of society as we know it, then silver futures and silver ETFs are great options. These can be thought of as collections of computer bits, just like crypto. But, they’re backed by metal that’s in the ground about to be mined, or stored at a remote location.
It’s unlikely that you’d experience the same volatility seen in crypto markets if you picked up some silver. This could be better for impatient investors. But at times of uncertainty, silver has performed exceptionally well.
This is not financial advice, but financial experts say all the time, diversify your holdings. If you’ve got some crypto on one of the trading platforms or in a hardware wallet, then consider picking up some silver, too.
